The number of rural households were distributed with free LPG connections under the Pradhan Mantri UjjwalaYojana (PMUY) has crossed the 1 crore. Under the scheme launched six months ago, each below-poverty-line rural household without LPG is being given an LPG cylinder, a stove and regulator. The NDA government’s flagship programme plans to make 5 crore rural households smoke-free during its term by offering clean cooking gas, at a cost of R.8, 000 crore. Among the states, poll-bound Uttar Pradesh has received the most with 34 lakh connections provided under PMUY.

Maharashtra government on November 8, 2016, signed an agreement with Canada to implement a joint action plan on urban infrastructure development in the State. Introduce companies, solutions and financing from the North American country for urban development and implementation of state-led infrastructure projects. Support Indo-Canadian partnerships including private sector companies, universities and colleges for quick project implementation, promoting economic development and contributing to raising standards of living in the state.

Sri Lankan government has decided to obtain10 diesel engines from RITES India ltd under credit line facility provided by Indian government. Cabinet spokesman Gayantha Karunathilake reported that the engines would be purchased at a cost of 4.25 million US dollars each and would be supplied over the period of next two years. India has been extending concessional line of credit (LoC) to Sri Lanka to support various projects in the infrastructure sector, including railways.

Kumbakonam based City Union Bank has introduced a robot on pilot basis to improve customer service. The robot is named CUB-LAKSHMI. The robot has been introduced in Thyagaraya Nagar branch of Chennai. Lakshmi designed and developed by a French Company, has been programmed to answer about 120 general banking questions/query in English language. However in near future it will be programmed to speak in Tamil and Malayalam languages also. A single robot cost around Rs 7-8 Lakhs and can perform work of 3-4 persons. The bank has a plan to deploy 25 robots by the end of the year 2016, if the trail run succeeds.

Twitter India, along with website India Spend, launched #Breathe service to enable users to get real-time information about the pollution levels in their areas with a tweet. The reply tweet will inform you about the pollution levels in terms of particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10) as well as give you the possible health impact of the measured air pollution levels. Pollution levels across India is a huge health issue affecting millions of people. By holding India Spend’s air-quality monitoring network, Twitter is making access to live air pollution data to help Indians make healthier living decisions from Earth Day 2016 and beyond.

Apollo tyres will start a manufacturing facility at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh with an investment of Rs.525 crore. The plant will have a capacity to roll out 5 lakh tyres per month which can be extended up to 30 lakh in future. Apollo Tyres chairman O S Kanwar announced that they would start first day celeberation in January and within a year it would be in production. his will be the company’s 5th manufacturing plant in India.Currently Apollo Tyres has two plants in Kerala and one plant each in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Apollo Tyres also has an international manufacturing presence with a plant in the Netherlands and another Greenfield facility currently being set up in Hungary.

Union Ministry of Urban Development has given Awards of Excellence to 8 cities in 5 states and 1 Union Territory for their initiatives to promote Public Transport, Non-Motorized Transport and Road Safety. They are as follows Gujarat: Surat, Gandhinagar and Rajkot, Madhya Pradesh: Indore and Jabablpur, Karnataka: Dharwar, Haryana: Karnal, Sikkim: Gangtok ,Union Territory: Chandigarh. Union Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Poverty Alleviation Venkaiah Naidu inaugurate the Urban Mobility India conference at Gandhinagar in Gujarat on November 8, 2016.

The prestigious Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance for this year has been granted upon the ‘Maharatna‘ firm, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). The award was received by Ashwini Kumar, CEO of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) on behalf of SAIL during the 16th London Global Convention on Corporate Governanceand Sustainability held in London recently. SAIL was conferred the award on account of its flawless performance in the field of corporate governance that is for balancing the interests of all the stakeholders of the company — shareholders, management, customers, suppliers, financiers, government and the community.

Subramania Kumar was given additional charge of the post of Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indian Overseas Bank for three months. The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved entrustment of additional charge of the post of MD and CEO, Indian Overseas Bank to Kumar, the only available Executive Director in the bank. Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) is a major public sector bank based in Chennai (Madras), with about 3700 domestic branches, including 1150 branches in Tamil Nadu, 3 extension counters, and eight branches and offices overseas as of 30 September 2014.

Former India captain Rahul Dravid has been made brand ambassador for the second T20 World Cup for the Blind in a offer to create awarness about the tournament. He would mentor the visually-impaired, Dravidstated he might need some mentoring from them. What they did is a lot tougher than what I had did. It would be foolish for him to say that he could mentor them because he had never experienced what it was like to be a visually-impaired cricketer. His role is to create awareness about this event. The tournament will commence on January 28 next year, and will be held across eight Indian cities. The Cricket Association for the Blind in India (CABI), the cricketing arm of Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, will play host.